Village Institutions in Egypt in the Roman to Early Arab Periods - Hardcover

by Micaela Langellotti (Author), D. W. Rathbone (Author)

This volume is the first to survey village institutions in Egypt during the first eight centuries AD, from the beginning of Roman rule to the early Arab period. Villages in the ancient Mediterranean world, in contrast to cities, have been little studied and the communal life of the majority rural population is ill understood. The rich evidence of the documentary papyri from Egypt, half of which come from village sites, permits both study of topics in detail and comparisons across time. This volume covers rural institutions including associations, local officials, banks, record-offices, legal procedures, festivals and monasteries. It identifies and discusses recurrent issues and structural changes in the power relationships between the central and regional city-based authorities and the rural population and their representatives in Egypt, and aims to stimulate comparative study of villages in other areas of the ancient world.

Author Biography

Micaela Langellotti is Lecturer in Ancient History at Newcastle University. She works on the social and economic history of the Roman imperial period (AD I-IV), with a particular focus on Egypt and on Greek papyrology. She is the author of Village Life in Roman Egypt: Tebtunis in the First Century AD (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Dominic Rathbone is Professor of Ancient History at King's College London. He researches the history and economy of Rome and its empire, particularly Roman Egypt. His publications include Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century A.D. Egypt, The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate (1991) and, with R.S. Bagnall, Egypt from Alexander to the Copts: an Archaeological and Historical Guide (2004; 2nd edn 2017)